Different Layers of Death
by Maaya
Summary: Heero observes his lover’s masks and thinks about the puzzle that is Duo Maxwell. 1x2


Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or any of its characters. Would I really write a fan fiction if I did? Anyway, I do not take any honour for the wonderful characters.  
  
Genres/Warnings: Sap, angst, implied 1x2, Heero POV, shounen ai, oneshot/ficlet, PG, maybe strange. I ate chocolate while writing; don't know if it's obvious.  
  
Summary. Heero observes his lover's mask's and thinks about the puzzle that is Duo Maxwell.  
  
*******  
  
Different Layers of Death by Maaya  
  
*******  
  
I can't tell you how much he means to me, because the human brain wasn't created to absorb the significance of eternity.  
  
When I look at him whilst he is far away in the dark land of sleep, I can't help but think his appearance is. . . fragile somehow. If he ever heard me call him that, he'd probably hit me a good one, after having given me a verbal argument and blow-off. But somewhere deep inside, he is just as fragile as everyone else, if not more. Without his many faces to cover him and keep him safe, he is still that unsure little boy from L2, who lost family and friends to war.  
  
My nose was only centimetres away from his cheek and I watched him carefully, keeping my breath slow as if I were asleep for the favour of not waking him up. He does that, you know. No matter how deep and far away in slumber he is, he is always awake when I am. It's like if he could feel how my mind went from unconsciously to a state of awareness. Like if he could read my brain-waves.  
  
He saved me. One day in the far future I will maybe work up enough courage in my chest to tell him about it. He saved me from myself.  
  
He doesn't know that the gun I keep in my drawer was for the purpose to kill myself with. He doesn't know that it is the same gun I pointed to my temple in AC. 195 just before the Operation Meteor started. He doesn't know I was fully intending on pushing the trigger back then.  
  
He doesn't know we maybe wouldn't have met.  
  
But note the 'was'.  
  
The sun began to rise in our horizon and it threw some rays of golden, liquid-ish light upon his face through the curtains. His eye-lashed fluttered quickly but in small movements as the eye-lids stirred. I let my breath calm down a little more so that he wouldn't wake up from my warm blows.  
  
But my wish to have just five more minutes of watching my lover wasn't granted.  
  
Just a second later, Duo Maxwell opened his eyes and I knew it would take a very long time until the next time I would get to watch him like that.  
  
Our eyes met briefly in a shared glance of soft understanding before the contact was broken by a giant yawn. It seemed wide enough to pop his jaw and I swear I could see the baguette with ham and lettuce he ate to dinner last evening in his stomach.  
  
"Mornin', koi." He murmured quietly and with a tired smile hanging on his lips. I noted he wasn't awake enough to put on all the layers of people that shaped him yet and he was still acting like 'kid'. "Couldn't sleep?"  
  
"I was very much deep asleep until I woke up, thank you. So I could sleep, but I can't any longer."  
  
He stared at me for a second as his sleepy mind tried to comprehend what I had just said, but before I had the chance to smile amusedly at him, he realized something. In the blink of an eye, he found the 'orphan street kid' façade and put it on over the original.  
  
"Asshole." He muttered with a newly put on frown marring his forehead. "You just love to keep me confused, dontcha?"  
  
His words were harsh, but the desired effect was ruined by the fact he smiled while speaking and that his love for me was in the words.  
  
I rolled from lying on my side, staring at his face, to my back. The view from there wasn't near as entertaining as the earlier one, but the street kid was the hardest to deal with for me. I had to think through everything I said or he would probably take it wrong the only way it could be taken wrong. It is from the street kid Duo gets his affinity for sarcasm.  
  
It's the proud part of my lover - the one that shaped his destiny as a gundam pilot and as a killer. But the 'street kid' is also the one you definitely shouldn't hurt in any way. If you do, he'll be pained about it for all future.  
  
"Duo." I said at length, watching a grey spot in the otherwise fully white ceiling. "Are you happy?"  
  
I could see how he frowned in the corner of my eyes and realized that the question had confused him. "What do you mean?" He queried.  
  
"Happy, here with me?"  
  
I turned my head and watched how the jokester fell in place to complete the others and when his eyes turned to meet mine, they were the ones belonging to the Duo Maxwell I first got to know.  
  
There was only one mask missing.  
  
I felt how my fingers twitched strangely as I wanted, needed, to grab him and hold him in my arms, never letting that part reach him again. Never, ever again. I wanted to hug him close to my chest until we became one being, now two. I wanted to soothe every small fear 'kid' was still having and protect him from all things evil. I wanted to kiss him until neither of us had the slightest bit air left in our lungs.  
  
"Yes." He said out of a sudden, startling me out of my thoughts and reminding me of my earlier question. I heard how the bed rustled and he rolled over to lie on his stomach next to me, with my arm tucked in under his body. He was half caught up in sheets and covers, and his bangs were tousled on his forehead, covering his eyes. He almost purred when he continued. "I'm definitely very happy. Why d'ya ask?"  
  
I leaned over and put my free, bare arm around his body. Ignoring the slight stiffening in his shoulders from being completely surrounded without escape, I kissed him on the top of his head until he relaxed again, breathing softly down into the sheets.  
  
"What if things had turned out differently?" I asked quietly.  
  
"When?"  
  
"What if. . . " I paused, hating myself for needing to ask this question and hearing the reply. ". . . I was dead now."  
  
He stiffened once again in my arms and I knew that the final piece in the puzzle of Duo Maxwell had now been placed for the day. Shinigami, the angel of death, had arrived.  
  
"Then I would be dead too."  
  
The breath I hadn't realized I had held, emerged past my lips at his hash way of saying the 'I love you' he didn't dare to use anymore. "I don't want you dead." I told him. "But I love you."  
  
"Then we better both stay alive." He sighed, barely managing to hide the yawn, and promptly fell asleep again, cheek resting on my arm.  
  
I was going to dispose the gun in my drawer as soon as I could.  
  
I don't need it anymore.  
  
*******  
  
The End  
  
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End file.
